HEALTH & FITNESS ARTICLES

Better Eating

Are you the average person trying to go from eating fast food and junk food every meal/day, to eating whole grains, lean meats and vegetables can be a huge leap. When people have tried in the past to go from one extreme to the other the typical result is burn-out and bingeing. Honestly, eating right is HARD. It's a big adjustment to most of our lifestyles, and unless we take it slow, we are setting ourselves up for failure.

You may cringe at the thought of switching over to whole wheat bread if you've grown up on white bread. Wheat bread may seem hard, or stale to you. Instead of switching over all at once, use wheat bread for all your toasting: like for a grilled cheese (using low or nonfat types of cheeses, vegetable or soy), or for morning toast. Since the bread is toasted you might not know the difference!

If you are a lover of red-meat, rather than giving it up altogether you could limit it to a fewer times in a week to start with. As the months go by try eating less and less of it, and then you can start choosing leaner cuts, like sirloin or eye of round once a month or less. Eventually you may even get to where you use ground vegetable crumbles in your old ground beef recipes! Although switching to ground turkey, chicken or veal may be a viable option too.

The recommended serving amount of fruits and veggies is 5 per day, and if you are like most people you struggle to even get in one or two servings a week!. The lettuce and tomato on your hamburger only counts if it's really piled on. There are many ways to start adding fruits and veggies into your day, even if they aren't quite in the ways that the nutritionists would like it. Juice is not the preferred method of getting your fruit intake, but it's one of the easiest ways, and a good place to start. Raisins make a great snack, and travel well to work or class with you. Add blueberries to your cereal, add strawberries to your bowl of ice cream ( ok nonfat frozen yogurt, low sugar & fat varieties or sorbet )! These may seem like insignificant steps, but it's better than zero.

Do you love the taste of full fat dairy products? Save the fat free and lower fat products for cooking. You won't know the difference between whole milk or skim milk in a casserole dish. Use lower fat shredded cheese on tacos, and save the full-fat cheese for crackers or your sandwiches sparingly. Try low fat cream cheese, when you mix it with beans, salsa, and shredded cheese it makes a great Mexican dip!

There is no need to try and restructure your entire diet all at onew time. By implementing small changes each week you will find that not only do you NOT feel deprived at all, but you will avoid burn-out and be able to make life long changes.